Development Studies (Research)

The information provided on this page was correct at the time of publication (November 2025). For complete and up-to-date information about this course, please visit the relevant University of Oxford course page via www.graduate.ox.ac.uk/ucas.

The MPhil in Development Studies is a two-year taught course offering an interdisciplinary introduction to development. It covers development theory, research methods, and key themes like politics, institutions, history, social policy, economic and sustainable development.

The course will provide you with a rigorous and critical introduction to development as a process of managed and unmanaged change in societies in the Global South. Students go on to careers in development policy or practice, or further study in the field.

Students will be introduced to development studies as an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary subject. It covers the intellectual history of development, the paradigm shifts and internal conflicts within the discipline and the contemporary relevance of research to development policy and practice.

Course structure
The course comprises five elements: foundation courses, research methods, the core course, the thesis and two option courses.

You will spend the summer following your first year working on a thesis. You will choose the topic, with the guidance of your supervisor, and, in most cases, spend some of the summer doing research and gathering data.

In the second year, you will take your chosen option courses and continue work on your thesis.

Each course entails up to four hours of teaching per week, delivered through lectures, classes and workshops. Class sizes are small – between 5 and 30 students – encouraging active participation and enabling students to learn from each other. You prepare for sessions by reading a selection of recommended books, book chapters and articles.

As an MPhil student you will be able to attend the wide range of public seminars organised by the department and the individual research groups. Beyond the department, Oxford offers access to a large number of events including seminars and lectures by distinguished academics and policy-makers in related fields.